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24.10.10

Bakin' My Balls Off (metaphorically, obviously)

Whew! Yesterday I knew what it was like to be barefoot, pregnant and stuck in the kitchen. Well, minus being barefoot cause I was wearing flip-flops...and the pregnant thing...but I sure was stuck in the kitchen! I'd come to the realization earlier in the week that we'd become too reliant on packaged foods, demonstrated by our considerable collection of cardboard wrappers that make it impossible to sit on our front benches. I thought to myself, "Jennie, you need to make things that can be frozen and there needs to be breakfasts, lunches and dinners." Oh yeah, home-cookin' here we come!

First up, breakfast. We'd gotten a flyer in a magazine (Style at Home, the subscription was a wonderful present from my mother) that had a recipe for Doughnut Muffins. Done. They weren't terribly difficult to make, but next time I'd add more apples and some cinnamon into the batter, as the cinnamon only made an appearance in the topping.

Mmm...cinnamon and sugar topping

They really do taste like doughnuts.

Next up, lunches. It's getting cold out, so Marc's switching to hot foods for lunch. I picked up some soup and he has been loving it. What goes best with soup, you ask? Bagels!!

Now, grocery store bagels are good, but I looked at the ingredients and they're full of long-named things. Great Canadian Bagel makes delicious ones, but they're about 5x the price of grocery store brands. I checked out some recipes and although time-consuming, they really aren't that complicated. Marc got some larger ones while I made myself smaller versions. I must say, they're just as good as GCB! Next time I'm gonna add cheese and some herbs...and maybe some sesame seeds.

In total, I was able to make 13 - a baker's dozen (nbd).

Finally, it was time to make supper. Marc's favourite food, in the world, is pizza and unless they're on sale, we don't buy them. That being said, they've been on sale for a while and we've kind of (me, anyway) gotten sick of the same thing. I have a fantastic pizza & flatbread cookbook, so I turned through the pages until I found a great recipe for calzone dough. This recipe was the easiest of the bunch and within an hour, including the baking time, we were eating delicious pepperoni and 3 cheese calzones. We each had our own and I had enough dough to make 2 additional ones (Hawaiian style with the leftover ham from Friday night's supper and pineapple chunks) and popped them into the freezer.

Mmm...Cheese.

So there you go; my Saturday in a pictorial-spread. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up my new cooking regime, but so far it's clear sailing ahead! I can't wait for Marc to get up because this morning we're going to have bacon and egg sandwiches on soft-home-made-Montreal-style bagels.

5 comments:

Remember the time that You asked me how to make a grilled cheese?! That is obviously well behind you. Wish we were closer, because like you, I really enjoy doing this stuff now.We could have a bake-off! Next visit, it's on! :) xoxoPS - I want the doughnut muffin recipe.

Haha Andrea! I do!! I also remember asking you how to get a stain out of my pants..that I ended up making worse because I couldn't follow specific instructions. In terms of the bake off - it's on.Thanks K-Money!